When hundreds of lights fail in one night.
Learning Track · Module 8: Maintenance · Step 69 of 101
Showing content for Europe. Change the region at the top of the page.
Main risks in Europe: Europe: windstorms, floods, and lightning. Middle East: dust storms (shamal), rare but heavy rain and flash floods, and extreme heat. South Asia: cyclones, monsoon floods, and lightning. USA: hurricanes, ice storms, tornadoes, and floods.
Before
- Keep an emergency plan with contacts for the utility, the road authority, contractors, and the police.
- Hold extra stock of poles, luminaires, fuses, and cable kits before the season.
- Mark priority routes: hospitals, emergency services, main roads, and evacuation routes.
During
- Do not send crews out in lightning, flood water, or high winds.
- Take reports and group them by area in the work order system.
After
- Make safe first. Fallen poles and exposed cables before dark lights.
- Patrol priority routes, then the rest.
- Restore circuits before single lights. One fixed cable can bring back many lights.
- Record everything with photos for insurance USA: and FEMA Public Assistance claims.
Note
Controllers show which circuits are dark within minutes. Without them, the first patrol after the storm is your map.
Related across the playbook: SOP: Mass outage after a storm: Restore in the right order.
Sources
- FEMA Public Assistance Program and Policy Guide
- EN 13306 Maintenance terminology
Changes: 30 October 2026: First publication: guides for Europe, the Middle East, South Asia, and the USA; failure library; tender clause library; comparisons; tools; downloads. See the changelog. Found a mistake? Report it.